Merle Fainsod

Merle Fainsod (May 2, 1907 – February 11, 1972) was an American political scientist best known for his work on public administration and as a scholar of the Soviet Union.

His books Smolensk under Soviet Rule, based on documents captured by the German Army during World War II, and How Russia is Ruled (also known as How the Soviet Union is Governed) helped form the basis of American study of the Soviet Union, and established him "as a leading political scientist of the Soviet Union."

Fainsod is also remembered for his work in the Office of Price Administration and as the director of the Harvard University Library.

Fainsod was born in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania on May 2, 1907, and spent his childhood years there.

In 1920, after the death of his father, Fainsod's family moved to St. Louis.

Fainsod attended Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 1928 with a B.A. in political science and an M.A. in 1930.

He then began his Ph.D at Harvard University in government, completing it in only 2 years.

Throughout the 1930s, most of Fainsod's work focused on the United States, and he published the books The American People and their Government and Government and the American Economy.

In 1932, Fainsod traveled to the Soviet Union on a Sheldon Fellowship, gaining his first exposure to the country.

In 1933, he returned to the United States and began teaching in the government department at Harvard.

Upon his return to the United States he also married Elizabeth Stix, with whom he had two children.

In 1934, Fainsod co-authored the book The American People and Their Government with Arnold Lien.

The book was a textbook, intended primarily for junior colleges.

In addition to providing basic facts about government, the book attempted to "teach patriotism, citizenship, and a proper zeal for the Americanization of aliens."

The book was rather poorly received.

Grayson Kirk expressed "skepticism over the value of the finished product", and wrote that "the idea behind the book is much better than the book itself."

Fainsod revised his doctoral dissertation and published it in 1935 as International Socialism and the World War.

The book analyzed the reactions of international socialist parties to World War I, dividing them into three groups.

According to Fainsod, the first group, right wing socialists, wholeheartedly supported their national governments in the war and refrained from contact with other socialist parties and international groups.

The second group, centrist socialists, "voted for the war credits only to maintain the unity of their respective parties," and maintained a pacifist position as well as taking part in international conferences.

The final group, left wing socialists, opposed the war and attempted to spread agitation and revolution.

Reviewers received the book favorably.

Because of his expertise on American government, he was chosen as a staff member for the Brownlow Committee in 1936.

In 1940, he was chosen as a consultant for the Temporary National Economic Committee, and in 1941, when America entered World War II, he was selected as a price executive for the Office of Price Administration(OPA).

In April 1942, he was chosen to direct the retail trade and services division of the OPA.

After the war, Fainsod was promoted to full professor at Harvard, and continued his work in research and teaching.

As the Cold War emerged, Fainsod took a renewed interest in the Soviet Union and helped to establish the Russian Research Center at Harvard in 1948, which he directed from 1959 to 1964.

Fainsod encouraged other scholars of the Soviet Union to use an interdisciplinary area studies approach, and he helped to "refocus scholars' understanding of the Soviet Union."

That same year, he was selected to serve as the chairman of the Government Department, a position he held until 1949.

In the 1950s, Fainsod focused on the Soviet Union with his landmark works How Russia is Ruled (1953) and Smolensk under Soviet Rule (1958) using Smolensk Archive documents.

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950.

In the 1960s, he held numerous leadership positions at Harvard.

He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1961.

From 1966 to 1967, he served as president of the American Political Science Association and from 1964 to 1972 he served as director of the Harvard University Library.

In 1969 after violence and unrest on the Harvard campus, Fainsod led the Fainsod Committee to study the issue of reform to Harvard's government.

On the committee, Fainsod "called for unity" and helped to bring together students and administrators.

Fainsod died of a heart attack on February 11, 1972 in the Harvard hospital.

Most of Fainsod's scholarship and writing focused on either public administration or the Soviet Union.

Over his career, he published five books as well as many journal articles and book chapters.

Of his scholarship, his work on the Soviet Union became most important, and his book How Russia is Ruled "became a classic and was used for decades as a textbook."